Armstrong: the confession

LANCE Armstrong's acknowledgement of cheating through doping follows 13 years of emphatic denials of drug-use allegations, including verbal attacks and lawsuits aimed at his accusers.

The 41-year-old American was stripped of his Tour de France titles and banned from competing in Olympic-level sports for life in October after the US Anti-Doping Agency published a 1000-page report in which it said it found proof he engaged in serial cheating through the use, administration and trafficking of testosterone, erythropoietin and blood transfusions.

USADA, the Colorado-based overseer of US Olympic-level sports drug rules, said in its October report that Armstrong's career was ''fuelled start to finish by doping'', using evidence from 11 former teammates.

Armstrong told Oprah Winfrey in a two-part interview that aired on Friday and Saturday that he had cheated by taking drugs through his seven Tour de France wins.